No Room For Softies and Poshies in this Movement. Allright!

There has been an outpouring of anger on Bright Green about Adam Ramsay’s arrest in Fortnum and Mason’s; not because the arrest was wrong but because a posh person like Adam had absolutely no right to sully a decent protest with his presence.

I wholeheartedly agree. His being there was a complete outrage and risked undermining public opposition to the cuts. Therefore I have put together this handy checklist for would-be protesters. If you can’t tick off at least half of the qualifications below please don’t risk causing offence or embarrassment by turning up to demos in future. Your role in any campaign against the cuts is to stay at home until directed to fill in a direct debit form by one of the leaders of the movement.

Now, at least 5 out of 10 please:

1. I can claim direct descent from one or more of the following: John Lilburn/Gerrard Winstanley/The Tolpuddle Martyrs/Kier Hardy.

2. I have donated one or more organs (musical variety not accepted) to the victims of repression in Saudi Arabia/the Palestinian Territories/Sweden.

3. All my knitwear comes from a workers’ cooperative in Peru/Bolivia/Ecuador AND I was a member of that cooperative at the time it was knitted.

4. I am the lovechild of one or more of the following: George Galloway/Tommy Sheridan/Bob Crow/Michael Gove (and I want to get back at him)/Hugo Chavez.

5. I worked for a minimum of six months in the Cuban healthcare system as a nurse/doctor/cleaner/human guinea pig.

6. I opposed the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein, the sanctions against the Iraqi people AND the cynical Western oil-grab masquerading as ‘liberation’ AND I found a neat way of reconciling all three that didn’t involve time travel.

7. I live in a squat in which all residents, regardless of species, have an equal vote.

8. My parents put me down for trade union membership at birth.

9. I wash no more than once a week in protest against the fact that millions of people have no access to clean water.

10. To reduce my carbon footprint all the lighting in my home is produced by burning oily seabirds (only those that died of natural causes are acceptable).

Now if you don’t measure up you can bog-off. Some of us worked very hard to build up the sort of credibility needed to sit on the floor of exclusive food stores and we won’t have the movement diluted by fellow travellers and entryists with their soft and uncommitted lifestyles. Now excuse me, I’ve just seen a puffin expire of old age and I need to be able to see in order to produce my next pamphlet.